Tag: gamification

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Connected Objects Fitness

Stealth core trainer makes your gut incognito

As annoying as it might be to hear, simply doing exercise isn’t enough. It’s also necessary to introduce variety into exercise routines, or else long-term physical change will be hard to achieve. Generally speaking, doing so is difficult but can be done. Effectively targeting the 29 different core muscles and keeping them on their toes, though, is a different challenge altogether. This is exactly what makes Stealth so appealing.

Stealth offers users a quick and effective core workout in under three minutes. They simply need to download the Stealth app on their smartphone, place it inside the Stealth, choose their workout, get into the plank position, and exercise their core. The game itself challenges users to follow and destroy different colored circles by bending, twisting and angling themselves in different directions — a ruse to distract them from the pain they’ll definitely be feeling.

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Prana wearable tells you how to breathe easy, take a stand

Today, most wearable are focused on measuring the number of steps one takes per day. It’s a useful measure of daily activity, but there is far more to understanding one’s well-being.

Prana looks like many fitness trackers that clip to a waistband, but it takes a different approach, measuring things that many other product are not – breathing and posture. Prana calculates a score for both and allows a number of ways to actively improve, including a videogame controlled by your breathing and respiration exercises associated with practices such as tai chi and yoga. San Franciso-based Prana Tech seeks $100,000 by April 30th. The price for a Prana is $129, a $20 discount from its expected retail price. The device is expected to ship in July.

Prana competes with Spire, which measures activity in addition to breathing. Spire is ahead of the curve when it comes to interpreting the meaning of certain breathing patterns, but Prana’s measurement of posture is a nice bonus as that has previously been the domain of other wearables; its active training is also more interactive than Spire’s.

 

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Kids/Babies Television Wearables

box&rox measures kid activity, lets them trade it for TV time

One of the foremost concerns for parents is the amount of time screens take up in their children’s lives. With smartphones, tablets, computers, consoles, and television all vying loudly for their time, it’s easy to see how most kids can forget about the outside world.

box&rox is a multi-layered system to ensure that children get the required amount of physical activity each day, with a goal of supporting healthy habits young to develop a solid foundation as they grow into adulthood. The system is comprised of three parts. The rox is a wristwatch that comes in a variety of colors that tracks a child’s physical activity throughout the day, earning sparkies as a reward. The box portion of the system connects to a television or a console’s power supply and meters the electricity available for use depending on how many sparkies were earned on a connected rox. The final of this system is an online world that serves as a place to use sparkies to gain more access to it, although the campaign didn’t do a great job at explaining why a child would interact with the world. The box&rox system serves as a warden of sorts that encourages physical activity and rewards it accordingly, taking the worry off the parent’s shoulder. The core system is going for £125 (~$198), while the campaign itself is looking for £10,000 (~$15,900) in funding.

The box&rox system is similar to what the Kudoso is doing for Internet access, and continues an overall trend of gamifying access to entertainment for younger children. Combining both in one household would lock down overuse for sure, but who’s to say kids won’t figure out a way to game the system itself? They usually always do, but I suppose an all night binge in Mario Kart could be viewed as an exercise in problem solving.